182 ILL EFFECTS OF of the seceding community, cannot both be right. But the evil does not end here ; for some of the adversaries of serious piety are, it is to be feared, disposed to take a most unfair advantage of this seces- sion ; and the very circumstance of that separation, which ought to have rescued men who firmly adhere to the church, and to the principles on which it is founded, from suspicion, increases it, and causes them to be involved in one common charge of extravagance and error, with men whose opinions they abhor : whereas, when the vessel is assailed by an unexpected storm, in- stead of throwing themselves out to sea in quest of imaginary safety, the tempest only makes the experienced Christian mariner cling the closer to his hold. Men of more than ordinary zeal and activity, then, should not be suspected of disaffection, unless they afford other, and more substantial reasons, for doubt- ing their want of orthodoxy. Does it
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